More Facebook Search

Previously I mentioned how Zuckerberg was being tapped for information about a possible Facebook search engine, and while he admitted to serving something on the order of a billion searches per day, he wouldn’t admit to there being an engine on the way. It seems this week, that there is still a smattering of discussion still trying to discerne if there is a social search engine on the horizon.

There is a strong belief in the social circle, that the search industry is headed towards a results page which is served based on your friends list. There has been the odd study every few months which seem about as skewed as the recent BingItOn (citing 2:1 Bing over Google acceptance) challenge which are overwhelmingly in favor of a social engine as opposed to a search engine. It’s only my personal opinion, but I think Google and Bing are already headed in the right direciton, with having some social signals being included into the organic and paid results. If someone were to build an engine served entirely by social signals, the only one in the space who could feasibly pull it off would obviously be Facebook, however their reasons for being tight lipped about the possibility of one launching is likely due to the studies being not entirely as accurate as the media would have you believe. As always, time will tell, and change is a very good thing.

Jabber, Jabber, Jabber

There is always a positive side, and a negative side to having someone else complete work for you. On the positive, you are paying a professional to complete a job at a much higher skill level than you could. A negative however, stems from the fact that you are time constrained suddenly, not by your own, but by the professional you have hired.

There is no real way to speed up the process of properly completing a project once you have turned it over to someone else. Just like you bring a car to a mechanic to fix your engine, you bring it to an autobody business to have it repainted. You wouldn’t ask a mechanic to paint it, it’s not their job nor are they proficient at it. In the same line of thinking, when it’s required for your SEO to work through your tech department, mandatory steps can end up taking a day or two, and (we have had ths happen) sometimes up to two weeks. This is an immense amount of time to lose on any campaign, whether it’s a single day or 10 days, it’s time lost in search. It’s akin to bringing your car in for a paint job, but having all of the instructions relayed through the mechanic, to the autobody technician.

Communication is an incredibly important step in the optimization process, and it works in all directions. Just as it’s important for a client to relay desired keyword position, it’s important that as SEO professionals we regularly communicate with you to keep you apprised of how you are performing. When the communication stops, that’s when the problems begin.